We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

In each of his first three games after a six-game injury absence, defenseman Kris Letang had to absorb a bone-jarring hit.

Against Minnesota, it was a Jarret Stoll shoulder to the chin. Against Toronto, it was a shove from behind into the boards from Leo Komarov. Against Detroit, it was a check from Justin Abdelkader.

Because he's such an important player in the lineup, leading the team's defensemen in ice time and quarterbacking the power play, the Penguins would like to see Letang avoid getting clobbered.

Letang would like that too. He's just not sure how.

“Not touching the puck? I don't know. Even when I don't have the puck, I guess I get hit,” Letang said. “I play the game one way. If I start trying to do different things out there, I'm just going to be worried and always be thinking, and I'm not going to be able to play my game.”

Coach Mike Sullivan said he believes Letang can get to a point where he is physically vulnerable less frequently.

“It's a process, for sure,” Sullivan said. “One of the points we've stressed to him is to be more selective on when he chooses to make plays and put himself in those type of circumstances.”

Off to a good start

With Marc-Andre Fleury back from a nine-game absence because of a concussion, 21-year-old Matt Murray was returned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL.

Murray's first NHL stint was an unqualified success. He went 2-1-0 with a 1.72 goals-against average and .938 save percentage.

“I told Matt when I was coaching him in Wilkes-Barre I think he's an NHL-caliber goalie,” Sullivan said. “We feel that strongly that he's that good.”

If Murray had stayed in the NHL, he would have received only sporadic starts as Fleury's backup. In the minors, he will play regularly.

“As disappointing as it is, I'm sure, for a player to have to go back to the American League, I think Matt's maturity, he really understands the process,” Sullivan said.

Cullen's role

With Sullivan continuing to shake up line combinations pretty regularly, veteran forward Matt Cullen has seen his five-on-five role change.

After playing much of the first three months of the season as the fourth-line center, he's spent some time lately as the second-line left wing alongside Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel.

“As far as playing the wing or the middle, it doesn't really matter to me,” Cullen said. “But it's fun playing with guys like Phil and Geno. Those guys are pretty exciting players to be on the ice with. I try to stay out of their way a little bit.”

Tough stretch

After Saturday's game against the Islanders, the Penguins enter a particularly challenging portion of their schedule.

A home-and-home series with Chicago on Tuesday and Wednesday will kick off a four-game road swing.

“It's an important time of the year, you know, with where we are in the standings and what we have in front of us,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “There are a lot of difficult games, a lot of teams that are tight in the standings.”

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.